Week two in the Winter Tour of the 2021-22 Dota Pro Circuit came with ended streaks and it already delivered possibly the most tense game of the season.
Tundra Esports began the week with another flawless 2-0 victory, this time besting Nigma Galaxy in a dominant fashion.
Tundra Esports
vs
Nigma Galaxy
It was the second series for Nigma playing with Roman "rmN-" Paley standing in for Amer "Miracle-" Al-Barkawi in the mid lane and, unfortunately for them, the result was identical with week one. Tundra continued to showcase their versatility and creative drafts and crushed game one with a mid lane Spirit Breaker from Leon "Nine" Kirilin, who set the tone for a fast-paced and rather brutal opening match. By the 13th minute, the kill score was already 17 to 3 in Tundra’s favor and it only went upwards for them, ending Nigma’s suffering before the 25 minute mark.
Headed into the second game, Tundra had the first pick and didn’t hesitate to open the draft with Spirit Breaker once again, while Nigma Galaxy tried to force them to find other solutions for the soft support role by taking from them Monkey King. That led to Tundra picking Queen of Pain, adding more confusion to their draft.
However, Nigma’s solution for attempting to have a somewhat more balanced game in the mid lane was to pick a Tidehunter for rmn-, which only allowed Tundra to bring the same hyperactive early game. They put Nine on QoP while Spirit Breaker was “demoted” to soft support, but with the same impact on the game, disturbing the lanes, finding pick offs and creating the early lead. Despite having Ivan Borislavov "MinD_ContRoL" Ivanov on Nature’s Prophet doing his best to split push and drag the battle to a late game scenario, Nigma couldn’t keep the pace and were forced to admit defeat around the 40 minute mark.
After Tundra’s quick 2-0 victory, Team Liquid and OG spiced things up by delivering not only the first series in Western Europe division that went to a game three but also the longest and the most exciting game of the DPC so far.
OG
vs
Team Liquid
Their confrontation started with Liquid last picking Troll Warlord into OG’s Shadow Demon and with an Ember Spirit vs Storm Spirit action in the mid lane. Prior to this game, Artem "Yuragi" Golubiev was deathless in the DPC, ending week one with an impressive 28-0-22 K/D/A at his debut under the OG banner. He was drafted Templar Assassin for game one and he was on the right track to keep that zero death streak going as Mikhail "Misha" Agatov did everything in his power to keep him alive.
Unfortunately, after a hectic team fight around the 30 minute mark, where Yuragi survived by the skin of his teeth courtesy of Misha, Roshan was the one to end the streak.
Nonetheless, that was the only death suffered by Yuragi, as OG were able to close game one with a victory within the next 10 minutes. The second game of the series, however, went disastrous for OG, who were not able to land more than 5 kills in total while being straight up beaten by Liquid’s empowered Ember Spirit.
Last game of the night went up to the 70-minute mark after OG held the gold advantage for 55 minutes. The draft featured an offlane Underlord for the youth squad of OG and a carry Wraith King for Liquid’s Lasse Aukusti "MATUMBAMAN" Urpalainen, whose ultimate objective was to get so far in the game that he would become immortal. Packed with action through the first 50 minutes, the game took a wild turn once Liquid were able to establish full control over the Roshan pit, thus forcing OG to a long and nerves consuming high ground defense, which featured tier five neutral items, a Giant’s Ring and a Divine Rapier for Matu.
Without spoiling too much, we urge you to watch the VOD if you didn’t catch this one live.
Week two will end with defeats for OG and Nigma Galaxy, who have no other series scheduled, while both Tundra and Liquid will return to action on December 11, when they will be looking to consolidate their lead even further. So far, they both stand at the top of the charts with a 4-0 overall game score for Tundra and 4-1 for Team Liquid.
